It was a much more refreshing day at IBL 2013 on Day Two – with the Independence Day Thriller between Saina and Sindhu drawing a huge crowd. It was good to see more than 75% of the seats occupied on day two.

Saina vs Sindhu at IBL 2013

Smash O Meter

Smash O Meter is awesome. It shows the speed of each smash and it adds to the excitement value. I wish there was an award like a ‘Fire Red Cap’ for the person who holds the IBL 2013 record for the fastest smash so far.

Smash-o-Meter

Mayanti Langer

Mayanti Langer, the lady handling the compering came nicely dressed in a saree today and it added to the colorful atmosphere at IBL today.

Mayanti Langer – The host at IBL 2013

Just like on day one, when Jwala Gutta got on to the commentary box, Saina Nehwal and Nagarjuna also joined in as guest commentators today.

Saina Nehwal – Guest Commentator at IBL 2013

Banga Beats – The Best Marketing Concepts

The Banga Beats team had done quite a few simple things which helped improve IBL’s image.

There were a few BOP fans in BOP clothing thus adding the team affinity value.

The Banga Beats players came in to the stadium and distributed Banga Beats shuttles which is quite an amazing way of marketing your team.

They even had their own theme music, which was recited in chorus by the Banga Beats fans periodically – full plus points to Banga Beats on this topic.

Mumbai Masters

Nagarjuna cheering for Mumbai Masters in IBL 2013

It was good to see Nagarjuna, the co-owner of Mumbai Masters present with the team – cheering them during their matches.

The biggest positive note is that in spite of Lee Chong Wei not playing today, Mumbai Masters did well, which means that when Lee Chong Wei plays (if at all he plays), it will add value to the quality of the team.

All the above points, though small in nature, add to the value of the IBL brand and hence will bring in more visitors and more sponsors to the games in the long run. Wish we do more of this more often.

Website – Low Quality

While the Facebook page is much better with information now, the website still has a lot to catch up.

IBL 2013 Website Home Page – Full Of Low Quality Information

Look at the home page above and see how the information is of low quality. Some examples are:

The scoring format above shows five sets and in fact has scores arranged in a wierd way that no one can understand.

Smash-o-meter shows 205kmph as the fastest smash recorded. During the Hyderabad Hotshots mixed doubles smashes went over 250kmph easily. The sample smash-o-meter screenshot show above shows one with 254kmph.

Why does the home page still show Delhi Smashers on the left and Pune Pistons on the right?

Their Results page on the website still says ‘Watch This Space More Information’. How pathetic: Besides the fact that it grammatically makes no sense, when would results be provided on that space? next month?

IBL Website – Results page on 16-August-2013

Also, the website has dummy pages listed as ‘Fan Club’, ‘Anti Corruption Policy’, ‘Anti Racism Policy, ‘Code Of Conduct Of Player’, ‘Marketing’, ‘Operations’, etc. Why have dummy pages with no content? Just remove them and bring them back in when you have content.

Even the Feedback page is blank, I am guessing they don’t want any feedback!

With such basic functionality missing in online features, it would be too much to ask for, to ask the Online team to work with the STAR commentary team to run a poll on twitter during the matches and get live feedback from twitter users on various things such as their favorite team to win the match, etc.

It will be interesting to see how it goes on in Lucknow on the 17th and 18th of August 2013.

While Hu Yun from China has been picked already by Banga Beats during the IBL 2013 auction, the Chinese shuttler has not been cleared by the Chinese Badminton Association yet, to be exempted from playing in the Chinese National Badminton Championships, which clash with the IBL dates this year.

Hu Yun

It will be very interesting to see what happens if Hu Yun is not released on time for the IBL matches starting next week.